I am
so sick and tired of being sick and tired. In the morning I wake with a medication hang over. I stumble over to
the bathroom sink and swallow the group of pills that were laid out the night before. Then I stumble back into bed so
that I can sleep for another hour or so.

The night before found me in enough pain to chug-a-lug two
pain pills. I can take up to three at one time. Then I curled up under a quilt on the couch to read until I was
so tired that the pain would be minimal to sleep. When I go to bed at night my mind has nothing to occupy it and so
I register---PAIN.

The pain is in my feet and legs. It's a result of the
medications that I had to take in order to stop my immune system from attacking itself. Yes, I have one of those rare
and strange autoimmune diseases that you never hear about until you have one. For two years my immune system was out
of control attacking itself. For how many years will I knock around with pain?

Sometimes, in my weaker moments, when depression is sometimes
too hard to fight, I wish that we had forgone the immunosuppresant and just let the disease run amok in my body. The
average life span for someone without immunosuppresant having Polyarteritis Nodosa is five years. I perhaps would be
out of this life by now had I not taken them. Long ago as I watched my Mother and her sister die of cancer, I had thought,
"I'd have to think long and hard before I took Chemotherapy." Well, I didn't do that. As prescribed I swallowed
Cytoxan right on schedule before it dawned on me that I hadn't thought at all before taking it.

So here I am. Caught in a catch 22. Damned if
I do and damned if I don't take pain medication. I have a chronic illness that has left me with chronic daily pain.
Hmmm! Not bad for a 66 year old who is also has a hidden disability. I park in the disabled spots and climb out
of the car without a walker, wheelchair or other assistance. "She looks good. She doesn't look disabled to me."
I wish I did then I wouldn't have to feel stupid as well as feel the pain.

Merri

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